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Why do we spend so much on health care?

We kept being told that health care is getting too expensive and that there is only so much money to go around. Slowly we come to accept that more often we will be required to contribute privately to make sure our health needs are met. But is this really the case?

Take a look at this graph showing relative expenditure for nine countries, including New Zealand. It does raise some questions about the political “lines” we are being fed about what is “affordable” health care. If a country has a high taxation level (combined GST or user-pays taxation plus income tax), like New Zealand, why is it unable to provide free health care? Why does a so-called wealthy country like the US spend so much more public expenditure than other countries per person? And why is the US private health expenditure out-weigh public health expenditure?

Perhaps some of the answers are provided in the following video from Upworthy: